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Rome Is Star Shaped: S.T.A.R. the First Italian App for the Spread of Cultural Astronomy

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Rome Is Star Shaped: S.T.A.R. the First Italian App for the Spread of Cultural Astronomy Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 16, No 4,(2016), pp. 525-531 Copyright © 2016 MAA Open Access. Printed in Greece. All rights reserved. 10.5281/zenodo.220979 ROME IS STAR SHAPED: S.T.A.R. THE FIRST ITALIAN APP FOR THE SPREAD OF CULTURAL ASTRONOMY M. Chirri1, L. Lombardi1,2, L. Ruggiero1 and L. Fabrizi1 1Civico Museo Geopaleontologico “Ardito Desio” Rocca di Cave, Rome (IT) - Department of Science, University of "Roma Tre" 2Department of Earth Science, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185, Roma, Italia Received: 04/03/2016 Accepted: 15/05/2016 Corresponding author: Maurizio Chirri ([email protected]) ABSTRACT STAR is the first italian App for smartphone and tablet entirely dedicated to the cultural astronomy sites in Rome. The user will be guided on a journey to discover mithraea, sundials and Astronomy related places of the Capital. In most cases, these sites are visited by millions of tourists for their historical and artistic value but their astronomical significance point of view is not valorise. Despite many ancient monuments also enclose a strong astronomical significance, linked for example to the original constructive purposes, this aspect is largely ignored by the general public. The aim of STAR is therefore offer the opportunity to discover an unexpected, original and evocative side of the city of Rome to a widest possible audience through an innovative technological support, simple and attractive, which STAR wants to be. This App aims to involve the foreign tourist as the Roman citizen rediscovering the city, the neophyte as the expert of this topic. With STAR it is possible to modulate the itinerary, to choose the number and type of sites to visit, depending on the time available, and the favorite way to reach the sites. Moreover, the user will have the opportunity to select the type of presentation of the site based on the desired level of detail. To add emotional impact to the experience, making more effective the communication of contents, the App allow to reveal the original appearance of the sites or bring to light hidden details using the virtual augmented reality. This tool also allows you to discover places otherwise not be visited because they are not easly accessible, in particular for those who are suffering from disabilities, with particular reference to mitrei for their underground nature. Moreover, STAR replace or compensates the lack of in situ traditional communication systems, mostly absent or very reduced. KEYWORDS: App, Cultural Astronomy, Rome, mithraea, sundials. 526 M. CHIRRI et al 1. INTRODUCTION During the period between 2004-2015, the course of Museology (Master Degree in Technology for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, University of Rome "La Sapienza" ) included a short course of museography and museology applied to archeological sites, monuments and artworks connected to the History of Astronomy and the Cultural Astronomy in Rome. During this period, the students produced papers and thesis on several sites connect with the Cultural Astronomy, such as historical sundials, ancient obelisks, mithrea, museal collections. All these works had to be included in a project aimed to create a spread thematic museum, a Figure 2. Star shape of Rome in P.M. Lugli (1923-2008) map. particular museal tipology, on History of Astronomy in Rome. Such hypothesis was perfect for our aims, giving The student's works was based not only on to the thematic museum of Astronomy in Rome an bibliographic and website researches, but mainly on enhanced cultural suggestion. direct investigations to obtain measures, data, The authors underline that the present work is not original iconographic materials and others. aimed to present new archeological discoveries but So, the students of the different academic years to show an example of museography applied to the have conducted museographic exercises on several spreading and valorization of Cultural Heritage sites sites, among these historical sundials, obelisks, through innovative technologies. mithrea, monuments with astronomical meanings, The best occasion to realize this project had been museal collections. During this works, we studied the selection of the Regione Lazio, expecially with accuracy the ancient cartography of our city, targeted for young creative people and aimed to the especially the maps of Etienne Duperac (1535-1604) development of innovative applications for and the great map of G.B. Nolli (1692-1756) (as smartphone and tablets. Each winning young showed in Fig.1). partecipant had the occasion to be connected and work with a company of this sector for the realization of the App. The project S.T.A.R. (Sites of astronomical turism in Rome), presented by our former student Dr. Livia Lombardi, in collaboration with Dr. Ludovica Ruggiero and Dr. Lucilla Fabrizi, was chosen by Mobile Soft s.r.l., a leading company in software development for smartphone and tablet, and classified first on the list of this selection. 2. THE CULTURAL ASTRONOMY SITES INCLUDED IN S.T.A.R. The actual development of S.T.A.R. includes ten Figure 1. Maps of Etienne Duperac (1535-1604), area of Circus Maximum, and of G.B. Nolli (1692-1756) sites, with astronomical meaning. Particularly, for the Horologium Augusti in Campo Marzio had been In this way, we have recognised a particular developed an original virtual recostruction, based on shape of Rome, formerly identified by the studies research and studies, offering the occasion to obtain and researches of the famous archeologist R. valuable museological, museographics and scientific Lanciani (1845-1926) (Lanciani, 1902) and in the later results. It is important underline that the muse- time, by the architect and urbanist P.M. Lugli (1923- ographic works on some mithraic sites in Rome 2008) (Lugli, 2006). Their works hypothisized that (among those opened) gave original results regard- some civil architectonic complexes in the imperial ing some enigmatic astronomical characteristics in age, would have built in specific sites, to enhance the frescoes of Barberini's Mithreum and possible and to underline some morphological characteristics extraordinary astronomical events, like planetary of our city, drawing an “altera forma urbis”, a star superconjunctions, that could had inspired the shaped city (as showed in Fig.2). building of some mithraic cult sites. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 16, No 4, (2016), pp. 525-531 S.T.A.R. THE FIRST ITALIAN APP FOR THE SPREAD OF CULTURAL ASTRONOMY 527 2.1 Horologium Augusti report of the digs occurred in 1480, in the occasion of The Horogium Augusti was the major solar sun- works in some houses of this area. dial in the classic ancient world, builded in 10 B.C. in These witnesses tells of a large travertine platform Campo Marzio, with the Psammetico's obelisk , now with a certain number of hour bronze lines, with in- in p.zza Montecitorio. scriptions and musive works of the winds. These To realize the reconstruction we had to make a and other information had been used by A. Donati, choice between two recostruction models, proposed in his “Roma vetus ac recens: utriusque aedificiis ad by different researchers. eruditam cognitionem espositis “, for a graphic re- The firt one was E. Buchner, an archeologist of construction of the zone between Porta Flaminia and The Deutsch Archeologische Institute, who digged Campo Marzio. the area in Via Campo Marzio at the end of the sev- The drawing of the Augustus's Sundial clearly enties years of the twentieth century and found a presents many useful and original details, particular- piece of the ancient bronze meridian line of the sun- ly the special orientation of the obelisk and his ped- dial. estal, on the meridian line (as showed in Fig.3). He proposed that the ancient device would have had a large travertine platform, with a certain num- ber of hour lines (variable between 7 and 11), the monthly hyperboles and the meridian bronze line having metallic daily lists. Another recostruction model was proposed later by various authors, including Heslin (Heslin et al. , 2007) and was based only on the obelisk, his pedestal and the meridian line with narrow travertine slabs. An answer to solve which of these two reconstruc- tion is the correct one could come from a new set of geological prospections, conducted by georadar non invasive method, aimed to find or not the remains of the ancient platform, probably presents at 6.5-8.5 m under the street ground. The area of Campo Marzio had been largely and deeply altered by several works and the remains of Figure 3. A. Donati graphic recostruction of the area between ancient large travertine platform could been entirely Porta Flaminia and Campo Marzio. removed (Lanciani, 1902). So, for the reconstruction of the Horologium Au- A wide collection of citations and data was recov- gusti (as showed in Fig.4), we have chosen the Buch- ered by the works of the so called “antiquarians” in ner's model, because more consistent with the pre- Rome between the XV-XVI century: humanists, pre vailing historical and literary sources. archaeologists, draughtsmen, and engravers. Among these, Flavio Biondo (1392-1463), Pomponio Leto (1428-1498) (Pomponio, 1953), Andrea Fulvio (1470- 1527) (Andrea, 1588), Bartolomeo Malviani (1488- 1566) (Malviani, 1632), Lucio Fauno (1501?-1560?), Pirro Ligorio (1513-1583), Michele Mercati (1541- 1593), Alessandro Donati (1584-1640) (Donati, 1648), A.M. Bandini (1725-1803) (Bandini, 1751). Some of these authors had a direct knowledge of the digs, with specific witnesses of unknown details. Indeed, the only available classical sources were some lines in the Historia Naturalis of Pliny the Elder (L. XXXVI parr. 71-73 cit. op.). Figure 4. S.T.A.R. 3D reconstruction of the Horologium Particularly, two authors Pomponio Leto, in the Augusti “Excerpta a Pomponio dum inter ambulandum Other original and useful notes of history of as- cuidam domino ultramontano reliquias ac ruinas tronomy, astrology, metrology, calendars history, urbis ostenderet ” and Andrea Fulvio, in the “Dele obtained in our work, will be presented in next arti- antichità di Roma” (L.V.
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